The repertoire of nineteenth-century Latin American piano music is extensive, but study of this repertoire has been hindered by a dearth of available editions. Scholar-pianists Juan Francisco Sans and Mariantonia Palacios launched the series Clásicos de la literatura pianística venezolana (Classics of the Venezuelan Piano Repertoire) with the aim of filling this lacuna. The series is supported by the Central University of Venezuela Editorial Funding for Humanities and Education, Vicente Emilio Sojo Foundation and Yamaha of Venezuela. The edition under review here, Clásicos de la literatura pianística venezolana. Federico G. Vollmer: Obras para Piano, edited by Eduardo Lecuna, is volume 9 of the series and was published in 2008. This volume received additional financial support from the Alberto Vollmer Foundation.Footnote ¹

The composer-pianist Federico G. Vollmer (1834–1901) was born at the Hacienda El Palmar in Aragua, Venezuela, the son of a Venezuelan mother, Francisca Ribas y Palacios and a German father, Gustav Julius Vollmer.Footnote ² As a youth, Vollmer studied at the Conservatory in Lübeck, Germany, remaining there from 1845 to 1854. Once back in Venezuela, he worked at the Hacienda El Palmar, composed music, and organized musical soirées at his home. Vollmer left Venezuela to live in Havana, Cuba for a period of time, and later returned to Germany, where he died on 1901.Footnote ³ According to Venezuelan musicologist José Antonio Calcaño, Vollmer was:

Vollmer's music reveals his mixed cultural heritage: his works possess a mixture of Venezuelan rhythms, motives, and music painting with European genres, such as the waltz and polka.

Vollmer was the only Venezuelan composer of the nineteenth century to publish all of his works during his lifetime. La Lira venezolana: Colección de piezas de baile, etc. (The Venezuelan Lira: Collection of pieces of music for dance, etc.) appeared in 1897, with a cover created by the eminent Venezuelan painter Arturo Michelena. This book contains 44 waltzes, 24 dances, 11 polkas, four single works, and three chamber music pieces.

The volume under review includes the piano music from La Lira venzolana, as well as four pieces (Gustavo, Emilia, Teresa, and La alegría) that did not appear in the 1897 volume. These were discovered at the Audiovisual Archive of the National Library from Venezuela. Lecuna also further enhanced this edition by improving some errors in the earlier publication, such as enharmonization, ties between chords, length of the notes, key signatures, up-beats, repetition, and final bars lines; he also modernizes the Spanish version of the works’ titles.

Lecuna addresses issues of performance practice of the period in the section Respecto a la interpretación de la música venezolana de salón del s.XIX (Regarding the Nineteenth Century Venezuelan Salon Music's Interpretation):

Clásicos de la literatura pianística venezolana. Federico G. Vollmer: Obras para Piano provides an updated edition of the composer's music, with the hope that this publication will improve and enhance the performances of Vollmer's music as well as encourage research about his life, in particular the circumstances of his sojourns in Germany and Cuba.